TRANSCRIBED FROM ARKANSAS GAZETTE DECEMBER 26, 1917 p 5
I am in the very best health now and working every day on a work train, doing something now I never would do in the states, for I always liked a good local run. We do not have anything like our locals over here. We are now using some of the new American engines and they are certainly dandy. The engines we have been using are like in the first years of railroading; it takes about three to make one on these new ones.
Guess you have read lots in the papers about some of the hardships we are having. I for one think we are mighty lucky, for we get three very good meals a day, good clothes and very fair beds to sleep on. Of course it is true that we are in a good deal of danger from airplane bombs and sometimes from the big guns, but I look at it this way; We are in danger in any walk of life and that we will not go before our time. So far we are the lucky 13, for we have not lost a man and we have been in several close places.
Frank Taylor is a lot thinner now, but seems to be in good health. Claude Stotts and I were in Paris together and we had a very nice time; the only trouble was we did not have enough time to see everything we wanted to. We hope to go again next year. All the rest of the Little Rock boys are in fine health.
Every one was happy today for we all received mail. It had been about three weeks since we had received a line, and of course some of the boys were getting blue. You ought to see some of the presents they are getting, something they never could use in the camp; and again there are lots of things that are coming in handy.
NOTES: A partial letter from France from Charles R. Batchelder to George Firmin. Batchelder was a conductor on the Rock Island in Little Rock until he enlisted in Co. B. 13th Regiment Engineers (railroad). The Regiment was nicked named Lucky 13th. They were recruited from experienced railroad men and went to Chicago June 5 for training. By August 4, 1917, they were in France. He was born May 23, 1891. On September 15, 1921, he fell off a train he was walking on and the train ran over him causing his death. He was buried at Oakland Cemetery, Little Rock, Arkansas.
TRANSCRIBED BY CAROLYN YANCEY KENT